Although road surfaces in the 18th century still consisted of broken stone, the drainage and grading of main roads was already much improved by the turnpike trusts. After J.L.McAdam became General Surveyor to the Bath Turnpike Trust in 1826 the main road would certainly have been ‘macadamised’ with his self-compacting road surfacing (see below), and Twerton High Street could probably claim to be one of the best roadways in the country. Any hard stone material was suitable for this purpose, and Twerton was well endowed with Lias limestone quarries which supplied not only its own needs, but also Bath itself. In 1782, for example, the Trust acquired a half-acre of ground ‘for quarrying stones’ next to the road below Twerton Wood, which remained in use up to the 1830s. It is likely that some ‘foreign’ stone was imported at an early stage, particularly Pennant Sandstone brought up the river from the Hanham area, but this was more expensive and used only for high quality paving slabs, bollards, spur-stones and kerbs. However, the tithe map of 1840 shows two stone wharves belonging to the Trust by the river on the outskirts of the village; one next to Avon Bridge at the end of ‘Twerton Flat’, and another at the end of Feilding’s Road on the site of the later Loxbrook footbridge. This would suggest that larger importation had started of the harder ‘Black Rock’ Carboniferous Limestone from the Bristol Downs which became standard material for macadamised surfacing up to the 20th century.

Early photographs show that by WWI the road surface through the High Street remained much as it was in the 1840s, with macadamised surface and Lias stone gutters and kerbs. However, its relegation to a parish road from this time onward led to a considerable lowering of the standard of maintenance and cleaning. By the end of the 19th century, the village had acquired the unofficial title of ‘Twerton-on-Mud’, and muddy wheel-ruts are clearly evident on several of the old photographs. Even by the 1930s when tar macadam was already extensively in use in the Bath area, the High Street seems to have merely been treated with a coating of tar over the original macadamised surface. It was not until the end of WWII, when new sewers and service conduits were required for the post war housing around the village, that the High Street was completely remade (with the assistance of Italian prisoners of war) with a modern asphalt surface and concrete kerbs.

'Twerton-on-Mud' 1900s

About Macadamisation!

John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836) introduced a new system of road surfacing which was universally adopted in this country during the 19th century, and is still used throughout the world today where conditions do not favour the use of tarmac. Later referred to as macadamizing, it consists of a layer of small standard-sized stones, about 2 in. diameter, laid onto a well drained sub-soil. Being the same dimension as the average tyre width of a horse-drawn vehicle, the stones automatically compact under the weight of the traffic, while any stone dust (introduced artificially or by vehicular attrition) is washed into the gaps, producing a mortar-like bond. Not only did this produce a flat and stable surface, but required little maintenance and material.

John Loudon McAdam did not have the opportunity to apply these principles (acquired from a lifetime of observation) until 1816 when he was appointed Surveyor General of the Bristol Turnpike Trust, but within a year the instant success of his system also led to an offer from the Bath Turnpike Trust. Although his report on the Bath roads was adopted, he did not become General Surveyor of the Bath Trust (in partnership with his grandson) until 1826, by which time the advice and services of the McAdam family were required all over the British Isles. J.L.McAdam himself died in 1836, but his grandson William continued to run the Bath Turnpike Trust until his death in 1861. Macadamizing remained the principal road surface until the early 20th century and the introduction of the motor car.

Any local stone was suitable for macadamised roads, but even in McAdam’s time it was already evident that the Carboniferous ‘Black Rock’ limestone found at Clifton (Hotwells) and on the Mendips (Cranmore, Whatley &c.) was more suitable than the local Lias. In 1851, for example, Bath Corporation was ordering ‘..50 barge loads of Black Rock stones from Hotwells, Bristol, to be delivered to the Corporation stone yard’ [City of Bath Act Committee].

The main disadvantage with macadamised surface was that quantities of dust or mud was produced by the attrition of passing traffic. In wet weather this meant that mud had to be scraped from the surface, and in hot weather the road had to be water sprayed or treated with calcium chloride to lay the dust. This became an increasing problem as cars with pneumatic tyres travelling at higher speeds made their appearance, only resolved by the introduction of tar-based surfacing.